


The Past is Inked on Our Skins

by under-latest-nostalgia (psionicTrickster)



Series: Folie à Quatre [1]
Category: Descendants (2015), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Possibly Pre-Slash, Post-Canon, Tattoos, The Jaylos is very vague.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4595430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psionicTrickster/pseuds/under-latest-nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the four children of the Lost wanted to keep moving forward and yet to never forget where they started.</p><p>(aka. Descendants AU where the Isle of the Lost kids get tattoos.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past is Inked on Our Skins

Carlos was the first to get his skin marked, after all he was the one who built the tattoo machine seeing as Auradon didn’t exactly have a tattoo parlor around the corner. He asked Mal to do it ‘cause as much as he was used to things biting into his legs, he wasn’t really sure of the fact that he wouldn’t mess it up.

Hours after Carlos managed to get the purple-haired ex-villainess to agree to his plan, a trail of puppy paws was crawling up his leg with the illusion that colorful paint was being tracked through his skin. The paws went in between and around the scars he had gained in his childhood. Something that reminded Carlos of the unconditional love of a puppy that he never got from his mother.

 

* * *

 

Mal heard stories about fairies when she was on the Isle of the Lost, how they’d flutter on their dainty wings that they “earned” by doing good. Her mother always spat at the thought, ranting about how dragons would burn the fluttering things to the ground in seconds.

When Carlos’ paws were done, Mal asked Evie to paint wings on her, powerful looking dragon wings that stretched across her back like they were growing out of her spine. When asked why she didn’t get traditional fairy wings, Mal would reply that it was because she didn’t earn her wings through traditional goodness, but by fighting for them like the dragon she had once dreamed to be.

 

* * *

 

At first, Jay made fun of Carlos’ sentimental tattoos, but one night he ends up breaking down in front of the young boy. Jay spilled out the treasures in his pockets, baubles and trinkets that weren’t from the Isle but was still a sign of the Isle’s mark on the boy.

Carlos held the boy close as he babbled and ranted on how he couldn’t stop and how he would never mean to take the baubles, it would just happen and he was so afraid that he would never change. That Jafar had molded his hands to take, take, take. Carlos dragged him over and made him sit still as the younger boy painted a wing on each wrist.

_You’re free of Jafar, Jay. This is so you can remember that._

The tattoo didn’t fix him, but it reminded him at the times he’d find himself sneaking closer to a girl to take a swipe at her pockets and he found that he would get a little better every day.

 

* * *

 

Evie was the last to get her skin inked, for fear that it might taint or ruin or scar her otherwise perfect skin. That is, until the _ever so wonderful_ Chad Charming asked which prince she wanted to be a doll for next that she stormed into Carlos’ room with Mal and asked the half-fairy to tear into her skin. Mal raised a brow but proceeded to pick up the tattoo machine and ask Evie what she wanted.

Evie showed up the next day in a crop top, showing off the ripped-skin tattoo on her side wherein her ribs showed and an illusion that the sides were held together by a bow.

She glared at those who gawked, challenging them with her eyes. She was blood and muscle and bone. She was never going to be a porcelain doll for another person. Never again.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my writing blog [under-latest-nostalgia.tumblr.com]
> 
> Tattoo Notes: If it wasn’t explained well, sorry but Carlos has puppy paw print watercolour tattoos around his legs (and the scars that he got from his mom’s fur closet) Mal has a full back tattoo of dragon wings. Jay has a watercolor wing tattoo on the side of each wrist and Evie has a ripped skin tattoo on the side of her torso with a ribbon on it.


End file.
